Haka Waiata and Fiafia 2016

Thomas and I went to school to see the Haka Waiata. It's one of my favorite activities of the school year. I've explained it before but as a quick recap: our school is divided into four houses. Each house has a Haka (boys performance) and Waiata (girls performance) which are scored both individually and collectively. The students are competing for house points that are gained throughout the year for the house cup.

This year, the Haka Waiata was even more special as it was the first time my students from my Whanau class last year ( form class, or homeroom class) were able to meet Thomas. Thomas, like a champion slept through the entire performance (they are linked below) of each house and all of the students fawning over him. He even slept through the kids holding him and passing him around. I, of course, with my mummy brain forgot the camera so I have no photos of "my kids" with Thomas, nor do I have video of Grey house and their Haka Waiata, which is sad as that's "my house".

Here are two of the house entries. There are four houses - Seddon, Massey, Hobson and Grey. This year, Massey won the competition.

This is Seddon house 

This is Massey House

A few weeks later, it was Fiafia. This is sort of like a dress rehearsal for the polyfest competition. The polyfest competition has many stages where groups of students from all over come to compete. Students work long and hard with tutors and musicians to master traditional cultural dances that they will then perform for the judges. Our school enters groups for the Cook Island stage, the Samoan stage, the Fijian stage, Tongan stage, the Niuean stage and the Cultural stage with our Indian dance group. Most of the students in our school are involved in one of the cultural groups. I've posted some video of the performances from polyfest as we were not able to take video at Fiafia to prevent the performances from leaking via the internet to other schools who were also preparing for the competition. 

Thomas was again a champion. We were at the back so it would be quieter with all the drumming. He spent most of his time snuggling with my coworkers getting to know all the people that will be around when he comes to visit at school. He enjoyed the drumming, smiling and babbling, but really disliked the applause which he showed by starting to cry each time. 

The Samoan Group (always one of my favorites) - this is the highlights video - about four minutes. To see the whole performance, check out the video below. 

The Niuean Group - this is the whole performance, about 20 minutes. 

Chinese New Year

This year we move into the year of the monkey and to celebrate there was a festival of lanterns in the park close by so we decided what a better way to spend an afternoon. We decided to go during the day for a few reasons 1) both Mark and I were home 2) parking is easier during the day when the festival is not actually taking place and 3) less people in the park means it will be easier to push the stroller around on the very thin pathways.

This means that although we saw hundreds of beautiful lanterns, and you could see the twinkle lights inside of them were on, they do not appear to be lit up but I think the colour and beauty of the hand stitched lanterns more than make up for the time of day when we enjoyed them. Below are some of our favorite shots from the day - including one of a sleeping Thomas enjoying the cozy ride in the sunshine.

A little visit from Canada

Just after Mark's parents found out that they would be expecting their first grandchild - they were researching tickets to come down to meet Baby Wilcox. They arrived off the plane, and Mark picked them up heading to the house first as NICU had visiting hours that didn't start until noon, despite their 6 am arrival time. They finally did get to meet Thomas, just after noon on the 11th. 

We had an exciting four weeks planned with a move to a new house, visits to the zoo, the museum and a few beach days - nothing like a good beach day in the Wilcox books. Rob and Joanne enjoyed some record breaking temperatures while they were here, the worst of it around the time we were moving. 

Grampie is a big Boston fan: Red Socks, Celtics and Bruins. A trip to meet his first grandchild would not be complete without a set of matching team supporting outfits. Here's Thomas in his first Red Socks outfit - wearing the "home team" colours. 

Nana seemed to have the magic touch when it came to sleeping Thomas in the early days at home. She was so patient with sitting and rocking him to sleep in the heat. 

Although a lot of what we did together this trip was repeats of things that Mark's parents loved about Auckland last time they were here, plus visiting with the new apple of their eye, one new adventure they had was the paddle boarding. Here they are moving to the other side of the surf. It is one of the few pictures Mark was able to get with them both in the same shot as they moved in different directions once they were standing on the boards. 

Nana and Grampie playing with Thomas on the floor on one of the last days before they left for (cold and snowy) Canada. 

The Tui's Nest

As many already know, about two months ago, we said goodbye to our first real New Zealand home at Fiddlehead Flat in order to accommodate our growing family. We were sad to see it go and our wonderful neighbour Pamela, but excited to accompany the new bundle of joy with a change in address.

Having Dad down to give us a hand moving was amazing as the two of us loaded the van together and hauled everything into our new house. This freed Mary-Ellen up to relax and focus on Thomas while Mom did a bit of cleaning before we moved things into place. After a few trips we were settled in, all the furniture reassembled and moved into place, at least till Mary-Ellen decided she wanted to move things again. Two months in and we are starting to feel like the space is ours. We have a larger kitchen will be great for all the cooking I will do this Winter. A proper space for our dining set means we can use the table for what we purchased it for!Our living room is well set up to entertain and convenient for feeding and changing the little one. It is also nice to be able to set up the furniture to face each other, which we were unable to do with the old living room.

Thomas has taken up temporary residence in our room so we can keep an eye on him through the night while the second bed room is set up for the numerous guests we have visiting us over the next several month. Eventually the room will be slowly converted to Thomas's room.

Outside, we have plenty of green space which Thomas can enjoy as he gets older and finally a decent space to put a barbecue which Mary-Ellen was thrilled to get. The gardens are nice and fairly simple but there is a lot of work that I have to put into them to get things back to what they were when they were planted. Having a covered carport is also amazing, allowing us to hang laundry out and get Thomas in and out of the car without getting him wet when it is raining.

And after two months we are quite settled in and we have named our new place The Tui's Nest, a place for us to raise our little Kiwi-born child. And after all this work to get a place where Thomas can rest his head comfortably, turns out he is not to discriminate as to where he decides sleep.

Grandparents at the Zoo

While Mark's parents were here, one of the things we all wanted to do was visit the zoo. Mark and I should really invest in an annual pass as it seems to be the thing we do when we want to get out of the house for a day but not really drive anywhere out of the city. We also love going at different times of the day so that we can see different animals as some are more active at opening time and some closer to closing. This time we went early in the morning so some of the animals were being fed and were a bit more active then they would be later on in the heat of the day.

This time the highlight, like when we went when I was 38 weeks pregnant was the kiwi. We actually saw the kiwi at the zoo! Twice now! Unfortunately, you can't take photos because of the "night light" in the display.

The giraffes as always were a favorite of both myself and Joanne. I also enjoy the big cats while Mark loves the Galapagos turtle. A lot of the chickens that roam around the zoo also had little fluffy baby chicks with them. Adorable.

The rhino was amazing as well as it was the best view we've had of him in all our trips to the zoo. The flamingos were also a thrill to watch as it was early morning and they were all dancing and squawking and preening their feathers. Here are some of the photos that highlight the best parts of this particular trip to the zoo

Thomas taking a break from the stroller while everyone else was checking out some local birds. 

Thomas enjoying the elephants, sort of, before drifting back off to sleep 

Mark's favorite animal at the zoo!

Oh, the irony! The wood pigeon sitting on a sign about the wood pigeon.

Monkey friends

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Tāmaki Herenga Waka Festival

Over the long weekend, Auckland Anniversary weekend, we decided to head downtown and take in some of the festivals while Mark's parents were here. There were several going on all over the city but we decided to attend the Tamaki Herenga Waka Festival as there was to be a cultural performance of a Haka Waiata which Mark's parents really wanted to see after having seen the performance last year at the museum.  We were hoping to take them to the Otahuhu College Haka Waiata House competition, but the competition was to be held a week and a half after they had already gone home.

We set out early in the morning as there was to be a traditional boat race between some of the iwi (family tribes). Unfortunately, after arriving it was decided that the waters were too rough and windy for this particular type of boat. There was a boat on display though, so we were able to see the handcrafted beautiful work that goes into the boats up close.

We visited the stalls of jewelry, crafts, traditional medicine, wood working and food. There was a lovely area set up for children with traditional children's games and lots of adults were taking part in the fun.

As lunch time approached we all settled down to eat, and afterwards headed back to the main stage of the festival to watch the Haka Waiata performance. It was a school that performed, the school that won the Haka Waiata competition last year. I missed their name, so I'm not sure what school it was that was performing. They did several performances all in a row. They did the traditional Haka and the Waiata and followed it up with some traditional kids songs that have actions.

After the delightful cultural performance, we wandered around the area as there was also a buskers festival going on to celebrate the long weekend. We got to see two of the acts.

In addition the buskers, we were able to see some of the Auckland Dragon boat teams compete in some friendly races around the harbour. 

 

Despite the windy start to the day, the sun was out in full force and the water was fine by noon to have small paddle boats out in the water. Thomas of course slept through everything, except this. No one, not even Thomas, can sleep through bag pipes!